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Not sure what I've got over Benfica this season. PLayed them twice so far, both at home. First game, in the league, I won 5-0 and the second, in the Taca de Portugal, I won 7-0! They are the reigning champions!

JimBowmanuk - Good season in the First. 62 points would have you right up near the top next season. For instance in my game last season St Mirren won the First with 60 points, and the season before that we could have secured the First Division with 62 points, though in fact we went flamboyantly over the top and managed 65. Oh dear, I'm not really making you feel better, am I? What I mean is keep improving next year and you should achieve promotion. Glad to see you're getting some goals out of Burrows and Kolseth. I never could; though to be completely fair to them, I never played them. It always helps to have at least one Kunt in your team - as evidenced by his 7.12 average rating.

El Sid - Congrats. Maybe you'll be the first to win a league title. (I don't think anyone else has yet).

Dextermorgan - Great progress. Is your nom de guerre a homage to the serial killer? Is your squad now completely basqued up?

GWiz - How does the Russian league compare in terms of difficulty to the other countries? I think it's the one country that's never been cracked, and someone once mentioned nationality restrictions. Is it difficult to find good players?

DodgeeD - How did you do last season? I must have missed your last end of season report. Is this your first season in Europe? Any way, good luck this season.

rlipscombe - Hope the final bit of your season goes / is going / went well.

Amethyst21 - Sorry for leaving you out. I feel for you. My team has one good striker (Ricardo Kishna) who never actually does the whole scoring thing, (and in fact just 5 minutes ago I dropped him to the bench for the next match because my best scout thinks one of my young guns has surpassed him) but he has created a lot of goals for my striker (Hamza Zengin) who does score a lot.

In fact I actually dread Kishna scoring goals because this is always a sure and certain sign that he's about to pick up a serious injury. Unfortunately for him I'm (hopefully) about to sign a new striker, who I've been waiting patiently to recover from an injury, which will probably be the (really, I apologise for this in advance. I'm so sorry) Kishna of death for him.

The hash reality of the game is that some strikers never score, while others, even when your Ass Man is giving you a star and a half rating on them and assuring you that even your 14 year old Youth trainee goalie would make a better striker, keep banging them in.

I wish I could access youtube in China, just so I could show you this bit of action from my last game.

We were up against Morton in the League Cup and their goalkeeper runs out to the corner flag to intercept the ball. Now what do you do in this situation

a) Kick the ball out for a throw in
b) Kick the ball out for a throw in
c) Seriously, dude. You have none of your own players to pass to. Nothing good is going to happen here. Kick. The. Ball. Out
d) Alright, kick the ball 30 yards up the sideline straight to my full-back who with one elegant sweep of his left foot scores his first ever goal for East Stirlingshire from 45 yards out, (official game distance. I'm not exaggerating).

It's the first ever highlight I've saved, and it will come in useful whenever I need cheering up with a laugh.

DodgeeD - How did you do last season? I must have missed your last end of season report. Is this your first season in Europe? Any way, good luck this season.

I was 6th in the league but won through the ridiculous European places play-off system to grab a Europa League slot. It was our first time in Europe and it was fun but didn't last very long. Full report to come later on today.

The league went really well. It came down to the last match of the season with us in the drivers seat and Valencia needing to beat our result to take the title off us. However they ony managed a draw and as such gave us the title. The league was until the last couple of weeks of the season a three way battle with Barcelona being the other team involved. However after Man Utd put them out of Europe their form seemed to drop off and enabled us to get a valuable 1-0 win over them to keep the title in reach. All in all I'm really happy with the season but now must push on and become better than we are if we want to take the Champions League.

A round further than last year so that's a bit of an improvement but still it's disappointing to go out on penalties.

Squad

GK's

Legros - Had a great season between the sticks.Salz - Played really well when he played in the 4th and 5th rounds of the cup.

Defenders

Manangu - Started the seaosn injured but once he came back to the squad was a mainstay and played well.Kverkvelia - A great year for the defender. He was solid and works really well with Miguel.Miguel - Played really well with Kverkvelia and even added a few goals to the teams total.Drachmann - Spent the last month and a half of the season out through injury but before that played really well. He probably played better as he wasn't playing every game what with sharing time with Mustafaraj.Duque - Didn't really get too much playing time but when he came in he performed well.Fusaro - once again the third choice defender and played fairy well.Felipe - Started the season in the first team as Manangu was hurt but after that got very little game time. He did play okay when he was in the side.Mustafaraj - Brought in to lighten Drachmann's load of games and played really well at left back.

Midfielders

Alvarez - Another decent year for the right winger.Fabregas - Can't believe that he was offered out by Barca. Came in and played fairly well for a 33 year old.Allen - A mainstay and the club captain. Worked well with whoever was playing alongside him.Roland - Had an okay year but could really find himself as the back up to Del Rio next season.Etxebarria - Played fairly well but didn't get as much time on the pitch as the last couple of years.Koke - Relegated to the 3rd choice once Fabregas came in, played fairly well during the first half of the season. Dumont - Was pretty decen tdown the right when he was in the side and is really pushing Alvarez for the starting spot.Del Rio - Played extremely well which is pleasing as he has come through the youth team. He is close to overtaking Roland for the starting job.

Strikers

Cruz - Had a fairly good year but was nowhere near as good as last season.López - Played pretty well and ended up as our top scorer.Serderov - Was great in the Champions league and played fairly well when he came on in other competitions.Millán - Started slowly and spent a bit of time at the start of the season injured but pushed on and got better towards the end of the season.Weuts - Barely featured. He was only really still with us out of loyalty to him. However he has now retired.

Player for the future

Ander Lasa - This youngster has come up through the youth squad and has played fairly well in the games he has played in. Has mainly been used as back up and has played with all the other central midfielders in the squad.

Pérez Postigo was given a mutual termination after complaining he was only playing in the cups.

Congrats Almondo. Unless I'm wrong, you've just popped our league champion cherry. I don't know what the normal BBVA salary is, but looks like you've got a tighter grip on those finances than someone converting to Buddhism to save on shampoo.

Europa League
Our season began with Europa League qualifiers. We entered in the 3rd qualifying round and were paired with Danish side Esbjerg. Despite conceding early on, we won the away game 3-1 and then proceeded to stroll into the next round with a 4-1 win at home. Rosenberg of Norway stood between us and the group stages but their European experience proved too much. A 3-0 loss in Norway left us with a lot to do and when we conceded early on in the home game it seemed impossible. However, we rallied and by half time we led 5-1 giving us the advantage we needed. In a crazy game, we then conceded twice more to let Rosenberg retake the lead. A late goal levelled the scores 6-6 on aggregate but it wasn’t enough as Rosenborg went through on away goals. A short but fun European adventure – we’ll be hoping for more next time!

Premier Division
I was confident going into this season that my group of ever-improving youngsters would be capable of challenging for a European place and so it proved as we were never outside of the top 5. As ever, we were prolific in attack but a big difference this year was our defence. Although we still conceded more than a goal a game and had the odd blip (like 4-1 and 4-2 defeats to Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe, a 6-6 thriller with Gençlerbirliği and a 4-4 scorline at Bursaspor), we kept many more clean sheets than in any other season so far. We spent the first half of the season in a tussle with Gençlerbiriliği and Galatasaray with the chasing back of Fenerbahçe, Beşiktaş and Bursaspor never far behind. An 3-1 win over Galatasaray in March set our opponents off on a poor run of form and allowed us to go top. However, we were only 3 points ahead of Fenerbahçe and I was always weary of the fact that we would play them away on the final day. Somewhat inevitably, we lost that game to finish level on points with them. We were pushed into second as the first tie-breaker in the Turkish league is head-to-head results.Final Table

Championship Group
If that had been the end of the season, I would have been sick as a parrot at losing the title on head-to-head results. But it wasn’t the end as we now went into the ‘Championship Group’ with the other top 4 sides. Much like the 5th-8th placed play-offs we were in last season, this is quite complicated but I hope this quick explanation will do – basically, the top 4 at the end of the regular season go into a group and play each other twice more. Half of the regular season points are carried over (so you still have an advantage if you were first in the league) and points won in the play-off group are added to that total. The top side after the 6 games is declared champion and goes in the Champions League group stage the next season; second place goes into the Champions League play-offs; third goes to the Europa League and fourth goes into another play-off with the winner of the 5th-8th place play-offs….

Anyway, best thing is to just get as many points as you can and hope for the best! Obviously, going head-to-head with Galatasaray and Fenerbahçe once again would be tough (in reality, I think this system was devised to give them a second chance if some ‘smaller team’ tops the table in the regular season) – we had won 1, lost won against Galatasaray and lose both games to Fenerbahçe in the regular season. We started at home to Fenerbahçe and were doing well as we found ourselves 2-0 with ten minutes to go. We couldn’t hold on though and it finished 2-2. We were then away to Galtasaray and again lost points late on. This time it was 1-1 with 10 minutes to play and we lost 3-1. We then had another riproaring game with Bursaspor. After our 4-4 result earlier in the season, we played out a 3-3 with the lead changing hands twice in the last 12 minutes. We then visited Fenerbahçe and gave one of our worst performances of the season, losing 4-1 and ending any faint title hopes. A team meeting gave us renewed belief though and we then beat Galatasary in our next game to pick up our first championship group win. That meant we could still finish second if we beat Bursaspor and Fenerbahçe lost their title decider with Galatasaray. We did our part with a 4-1 victory and all was going well in the other game until Fenerbahçe scored a late equaliser to finish ahead of us, once again on head-to-head results…Final standings

Turkish Cup
Another year, another early exit! This time, we faced Beşiktaş away in the 4th round and lost 3-1.

The Squad: Transfers
We had a clear out of the reserve squad and also got the chance to send some players out on loan this season. The loss of Joe Marshall was tough to take but brought in a decent fee.

The deals concluded in January were mainly ones with the future in mind as I picked up a few youngsters on free transfers. One addition to the first team squad came in the shape of Israeli U21 international defender Matan Mizrahi, a bargain at 325k.

The Squad: Key PlayersEgemen Korkmaz (DC) – Rolled back the years with some commanding displays at centre half. He was a big part of the reason our defence was better. Unfortunately, he was only on a one-year contract and rejected our extension offer opting for a swansong in Portugal instead. Still, he is about to turn 36 so it won’ be too big of a blow.Samet Kalaç (DC) – The other part of the reason our defence was better. Kalaç was solid and benefitted from playing alongside the more experienced Korkmaz.Şahin Kaya (DM) – Started the season as a rotation option but injuries soon meant he was first choice in the holding midfield role. He turned in performances beyond his years (he turned 18 during the season) and it is great to see a product of our own youth system in the team so quickly.Inout Maior (MC) – The Romanian has really developed over the last couple of seasons and is now one of the best midfielders in the league and a regular in his national sides squad.Hakan Konak (AMR/C) – Made sure the departing Joe Marshall was not missed too much with 15 goals and 15 assists from the right wing. He did well enough to get called up by the natşonal side at the end of the season.Barış Tan (AMLC) – With Berkin Arslan spending much of the season injured, this youngster got a chance to step up and prove himself, which he took well. Not as prolific as Hakan on the right but still turned in some match-winning performances.Jens Mayer (AMR/ST) – built on last season’s promise to score and contribute several goals whether playing up front or on the right wing.Nicky Woodford (ST) – Somehow even better than last season! 30 goals in the league and more in our brief European run helped make him the club’s record scorer of all time – not bad after just 2 and a half years at the club. He was even scouted by England boss José Mourinho ahead of the World Cup but alas didn’t make the squad.

The Squad: Ones to WatchSercan Nergiz started to justify the 2million I spent on him when he was 17 with some good performances when given a chance in the first team. He may well be our first choice left-back next season. January signing Matthew Blake also showed signs of promise in central midfield and Keçiörengücü fans can expect to see more of the Welshman in the new campaign.

The Season Ahead…
Europe is now an expectation, both for me and the club. I will also be looking to reach the group stages in the Europa League and I desperately want to have a run in the cup!

In terms of the squad, I will be offering new deals to key players like Woodford, Maior and Konak, which may take up a lot of our extra wage budget. Any new faces will most likely be Turkish as I feel there are too many foreign players in the squad at present. A new central defender to replace Korkmaz and some extra options in midfield will be my main targets.

An impressive debut in La Liga saw us finish in 13th place and 16 points above the relegation zone. Bar between mid September and the end of October we were always pretty comfortable points wise. We had a few hidings along the way but that was always to be expected and i'll be very surprised if we don't get another few this year.

With my faith in Daniel Aranzubia more or less lost I decided the only way to play last season was to try and attack (settings were fluid and overload) and I think that was the main reason we did as well as we did, I saw it as pointless being cautious with the squad we had because we'd have been inviting trouble on ourselves, pretty much as I had the same philosophy in the Adalente. This year however I feel the signings I have made will tighten things up, especially Zabal in goal. He is far from the best keeper but very solid and probably a position I don't have to worry about for the next 2 seasons.

I was given an £18M budget to spend on players and I tried to get Raul Garcia again but he rejected me even after my £3M bid was accepted by Atletico.

I tried to get the board to build us a new stadium and whilst in principle they agreed we didn't have the funds so I decided that I would spend most of the transfer budget this year and take the chance on youth in the hope they can bed in to save me spending next season and allow us to save for the stadium. Below are links of all our signings.

For the moment right back is our main concern but there is just nobody available, if someone does come along then that will be the only area i'll spend on for the time being. I feel those signings plus Asier Illarramendi last season makes the midfield my strongest area now, also my very first signing Ander Romero has made great strides in the past year, he's had a fair number of games and I have far better coaches than I did in the first 2 seasons which is obviously a factor, I hope he continues to develop as I always try and keep one of my original squad members/first signings at a club in this kind of save to add a bit of romance to it

Obviously I am aiming for survival again (all the board wants) anything more will be a bonus and at this stage (I'm already well in to the next season but couldn't be arsed to write this out last night) we are doing pretty well, I will go in to more detail in the half way review.

DodgeeD, very good season there do you think you've got the squad to go that little bit further next season?

Almondo, congratulations on the title I find Spain is always the hardest league to crack such is the force of Barca and Real over the rest of the league so it's a an achievement you should be proud of.

Jimbowmanuk, good season there too, if you can sort that defence up it seems you certainly have the firepower to go up next year.

el sid, i'm very impressed by the look of Neves and Millet in particular and they are very good incomings. Your side has taken to the Bundesliga like a duck to water, well done mate.

vikeologist, hope this answers your first question As for the Basque players I was quite lucky in that I only had one in the original squad and his contract ran out at the end of that season (can't remember his name and everyone who went that summer has retired so can't even check their profiles) Every single signing has been Basque and there has only been Aymeric Laporte who isn't Spanish Basque

DodgeeD, very good season there do you think you've got the squad to go that little bit further next season?

Cheers Dexter and congrats on a solid first season in the top flight.

I think we will be there or there abouts this season. I took a risk on buying a lot of youngsters with potential during our first season up and playing them in the first team rather than bringing in established players. That meant a dodgy first season (esğecially in defence) but it's paying off now as I have a good core of talented youngsters who are fufilling their potential. I have only brought in a few players on frees this summer as I didn't feel the need to spend. If not this season, then I expect to seriously push for the title next.

P.S. It's been a bit expensive and required some fiddling with budgets but I got nearly all first teamers with less than two years on their current contracts to sign new ones so I won't be forced into another situation like the Joe Marshall one. The only player to refuse a new deal is Samet Kalaç but he still has two years to go so I hope success this season can change his mind.

The odds on my game don't seem to be accepting that I'm a stronger team than I was when I got promoted. They still put me down as favourites to lose in games we really should be winning. Makes team talks tricky, although, having said that, I do keep losing to the poor teams too.

Edit - In something of a snap decision I've decided it's my defence that is sub-standard. January's coming up, going to look to make some big changes to my centre-backs.

GWiz - How does the Russian league compare in terms of difficulty to the other countries? I think it's the one country that's never been cracked, and someone once mentioned nationality restrictions. Is it difficult to find good players?

yeah its pretty tough, in the First Division you're restricted to 3 foreigners in your starting 11, so meant a lot of rotating my best players to satisfy the league rules. That goes up to 6 players in your starting 11 when you hit the Premier Division, so allows you to broaden your search a bit more. My main restriction so far has been finances, there is a lot of money in Russia at the moment, but its split between the larger teams (Anzhi, Zenit, CSKA), and the difference between the top teams and bottom teams in that division budget-wise is huge. My first year in the top division my wage budget is only 36k a week, so pretty tough to find players good enough within that limit.

Ill post an update with my signings shortly, got a few good young players in.

I would love to be the first to crack the challenge in Russia, but if its possible its going to take a fair bit of time to get the team really competitive in the Premier Division

So, i took the decision to let Alim Mikheev go, Spartak Moscow offered me £2.5 million for him, too much money for me to refuse. So thats the 3 players currently in my favoured personnel list gone (Yuriy Sarasek & Marek Kuzma also left, Sarasek for free, Kuzma for £250k).

This left me with a few gaps to fill, and so the following players have all been brought in on frees to strengthen the squad:

Michael Babangida - young CB/ST, highly rated by my staff, and just picked up his first full cap for Nigeria

Ales Slezak - CM/AMC who will slot into my midfield with relative ease

Maxim Votinov - brought in to help with the loss of Sarasek and Kuzma, hopefully he can provide good competition for the lone striker position

Alexandr Zotov - staff consider him to be my best DM so will fight with Kashiev and Bangoura for one of the starting places

I have decided to try and shift the focus of the squad to youth, hopefully some of these guys, along with the young players ive signed and the few decent prospects from our own youth setup can help the squad stay in the division. Its going to be a tough first season, but if we can consolidate a place in the Russian Premier Division then i hope we can kick on from there, with better finances next season

G-Wiz - congrats on promotion to the Premier Division.Dexter – wow!! La Liga already!! That’s some form run to the top league. Solid 1st season there in La Liga too. Loving your progress – keep it up!Toonbalmy - well done on 2nd place. Good luck in the CL next season. Amethyst21 - looks like a tough season mate. Hopefully you can bounce back next season.Almondo - Fabregas eh… good signing though he does look to be declining a little. I’d have struggled to resist signing him though. And congrats on the league title! Good luck with the CL next season.El sid - congrats on 2nd place. Think we may be looking at Bundesliga champions for next season….PRDH - awesome results against Benfica!Vikeologist - solid season there mate.DodgeeD - well done on 2nd place though gutted you didn’t snatch the title.

This certainly came as a shock to me. I spent a lot of the season trying to make the best out of our midfield and ultimately the first 2/3rds of the season were below par because of it (Malaga away aside, where I had gone back to 4-4-2 for a few games to get a few points on the board)

I don't know if any of you read my YF Juventus story from the Gundo challenge but from time to time when things aren't going well I try and make a tactic a bit out of the ordinary, not really stupid but a bit less predictable than normal. There I developed a libero system which won me the Champions league and I felt the need to make something different again, this time making use of my reasonably strong midfield and this 3-6-1 idea popped in to my head which particularly worked well at Valencia (my first win away at one of the traditional bigger clubs to date) and one the final day of the season at home to Atletico.

It was disastrous away at Real, but it was only the third game in to it after winning the previous 2, I had literally just started training Hugo Arroyo to become a CB and he's still only orange at it now after about 12 games there. Eventually he will become a libero, he seems to have all the right attributes to be able to do it but first of all I want him settled in the CB role. Eventually I would like to make this tactic a 3-3-3-1 or something similar but the players aren't available yet so it'll be a case of developing any youth prospects I can snatch from other clubs.

If we had won against Osasuna with 3 games left I would have thought we could have made the Europa league this year because obviously they'd have had 3 points less and we'd have had 3 points more but I was convinced that opportunity for this season had gone, even whilst we were thrashing Atletico we were stuck in 8th place, even just the final whistle went my mini table in the corner had us as 8th (I tend to have the live table on all the time in the second half of the season to see how things are going ) so when I gave the team talk and found out Bilbao had done us a favour and scored in the dying seconds to bump us ahead of them I was genuinely shocked

The youth prospects I have posted may not have performed well as of yet but to be fair i've thrown them in at the deep end and their attributes have improved a lot over the season, with the lack of Basque talent available (or at least as of yet) I have to trust any kids I can snap up from day one and it's going to be like that for a few more seasons yet.

I've not made any signings as of yet for the next season but I have my eye on a young striker at Valencia, a young center back at Roma and Markel Susaeta from Bilbao. Susaeta is probably the one I need the most at the moment but I need him to drop his wages by £5k or hope that the board give me an increase once the final budgets are set.

Finally, the curtains came down on Daniel Aranzubia's career. Though his form this and last season was below par we would never have made it to La Liga without his heroics in the Adelante and when I saw he wanted to be a coach I felt it was my duty to offer him a role at the club and he is already looking a top class coach

Because of this ridiculous game, we've been knocked out of the group stages of the Champions League. Finished 3rd, with the same points as 2nd place Valencia, but they qualify due to a better H2H record.

Transfers
Only signed 5 players all year with 1 of them coming in January and another after the season had ended but he looks like he'll be important next season, got rid of a lot of deadwood too, as some of these players were good in the Third Div but very poor for the First

League
The board wanted me to achieve a respectble position in the league and with some great results early on we were cruising to the title, 6 points clear after 18 games and things were looking very good, but a couple of draws and the odd loss coupled with Falkirk's form looking unbeatable we were struggling to hold onto top spot, then with the final few games of the season Elgin and Falkirk were switching places regularly, going into the last game we were 2points behind but our goal difference was superior to Falkirk. So if we won and Falkirk failed to do so we were going up, Falkirk conceded after only 5 mins, and we were crusing in our game but East Fife pulled back 2 goals to give me a nervy 10 mins but the team held on in the end and Falkirk failed to find the net meaning we were promoted on 75 points and Falkirk finished their 2nd season in a row 1 point behind the champions.Graph - jostling with FalkirkFixtures 1Fixtures 2Fixtures 3

An easy way to please the board, as we didn't enter the competition til the 4th round, we had an away trip to non-league Inverurie Loco Works, a game we dominated 5-0 setting up a trip to Glasgow to play Celtic and another payday for the club, we were played off the park going down 4-0

We were drawn against Third division East Stirlingshire in the 1st round, and the minnows put up a good fight we won 5-3 but my defence looked very suspect, the 2nd round had us travelling to fellow First Division side Kilmarnock and we played them off the park running out 6-0 winners, the team was starting to gel now, the 3rd round matched us against our Parent Club Hibernian, who went 2-0 up early but soon we were firing and were 4-2 up with 20 minutes to go before the defence collapsed and let in 4 goals meaning we were out 4-6.

Squad
The squad is taking shape now but despite scoring barrel loads of goals thanks to a great partnership between Kimbembe and Kolseth accounting for 48 goals throughout the season, Keeper Boothman and his deputy, Glover, are both very suspect in goal but I cant find better players willing to sign, Dale Fulton was the on Scottish player still considered good enough for the squad and his 32 assists proved why he's in the team.

Unless the board upgrade us to professional status next season we are really going to struggle, the board have decided to install undersoil heating meaning we will be ground sharing Highland League team, Forres Mechanics ground til work is complete, this pleases me as their ground holds 1k more fans than mine so more money hopefully.

JimBowmanUK - Congrats, but blimey that sounds like it was a stressful final game. You shouldn't have too many problem in the top tier. I hope you didn't have too many players with promotion to top division clauses. I'm sure you will go pro now, but your wage bill could be about to increase somewhat.But - sharing with Forres Mechanics! I assumed grounds had to be all-seater in the Premier League.Hopefully you can expand your own ground soon.

JimBowmanUK - Congrats, but blimey that sounds like it was a stressful final game. You shouldn't have too many problem in the top tier. I hope you didn't have too many players with promotion to top division clauses. I'm sure you will go pro now, but your wage bill could be about to increase somewhat.But - sharing with Forres Mechanics! I assumed grounds had to be all-seater in the Premier League.Hopefully you can expand your own ground soon.

Cheers Vikeologist, We turned professional just before the new season started, but the rules in Scotland are that top tier teams have to have undersoil heating, which cost the club £2.4 million, we didn't have the cash so the board took out a loan costing nearly £40k a month, wage bill is £9k but I had to sell Kimbembe to get some cash and keep wages down, started the season with a draw at Hibs, win against St Mirren and spanked 4-0 by Hamilton, won in the 1st 2 rounds of the league cup though so a good cup run could give us some extra income. I reckon we'll be mid-table at the end of the season. Link cut with Hibs but I now have Bolton Wanderers as my Parent Club.

I'm kind of enjoying playing in the Scottish premier for the first time. Many years ago I gave it a try, with my boyhood club Hibs, but never seemed close to breaking the Glasgow monopoly. Every time I had a half decent player they wanted too much money and buggered off to Celtic / rangers (which to be fair is fairly true to life) but this time there are a couple of differences.

1. As mentioned in previous posts, coinciding with my arrival in the Premier, Rangers became rubbish (though unfortunately not always necessarily against us). This means that the competition for a Champions League place is up for grabs. Then this season Celtic aren't running away with the title. If fact after about 15 games there's still lots of teams in touch with the leader (who's either Celtic or Hibs who have a game or two in hand I think).

2. The league splitting into 2 for the final 5 games is actually quite fun, especially if the clubs are quite close together. It meant the final 5 games of the season were all key games against our rivals for European places (plus Celtic who had won the league sometime in the distant history of the campaign). Of course these final 5 games won't be so key every season, but it does make things more interesting sometimes, both before and after the 'split', and since we're hovering around mid-table again, I'm enjoying the game in a way i didn't the first couple of seasons which were basically cake-walks and the time in Division 1 where there was just one promotion place and a whole lot of also rans.

Football Manager isn't life or death ... It's far more important than that!

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Originally Posted by DodgeeD

brettney1890 - Congrats on the title (the bizarre play-off system does mean you are champions!) What is Turkey's coefficient like in your game? I assume that means automtic qualificaiton for the group stages of the Champions Legue still.

Had to go through 2 qualifying rounds, APOEL 4-3 and Partizan 7-0 (both Agg.) got a group of Chelsea, AZ + Lyon. Haven't managed to play in a few days again.

I'm kind of enjoying playing in the Scottish premier for the first time. Many years ago I gave it a try, with my boyhood club Hibs, but never seemed close to breaking the Glasgow monopoly. Every time I had a half decent player they wanted too much money and buggered off to Celtic / rangers (which to be fair is fairly true to life) but this time there are a couple of differences.

1. As mentioned in previous posts, coinciding with my arrival in the Premier, Rangers became rubbish (though unfortunately not always necessarily against us). This means that the competition for a Champions League place is up for grabs. Then this season Celtic aren't running away with the title. If fact after about 15 games there's still lots of teams in touch with the leader (who's either Celtic or Hibs who have a game or two in hand I think).

2. The league splitting into 2 for the final 5 games is actually quite fun, especially if the clubs are quite close together. It meant the final 5 games of the season were all key games against our rivals for European places (plus Celtic who had won the league sometime in the distant history of the campaign). Of course these final 5 games won't be so key every season, but it does make things more interesting sometimes, both before and after the 'split', and since we're hovering around mid-table again, I'm enjoying the game in a way i didn't the first couple of seasons which were basically cake-walks and the time in Division 1 where there was just one promotion place and a whole lot of also rans.

I managed to always break the Old Firm monopoly with my team, St Johnstone in the old Champ Manager 2 days( helped by the fact I had Duncan Ferguson and Alan Shearer as my strike partnership) but always struggled with football manager, Rangers seem to be on a down turn in my game too, they finished 2nd in 14/15 beating Hibs who finished 3rd on goal difference, and in 15/16 they only finished 4th behind Celtic(1st), Aberdeen(2nd) and Hibs(3rd) Celtic do seem to win the league quite comfortably so that'll be the real challenge in a couple of seasons

Not sure how I just lost that game. Second-leg of my Euro Cup First Knockout Round against Stuttgart. Drew 2-2 in the first leg in Germany. Back in the Azores I had 21 shots to their 8, 66% of possession and 10 corners to their 1 and I lost 3-1.

Oh well, it looks like I'll be having another shot at Europe's less glamourous competition next season...

Football Manager isn't life or death ... It's far more important than that!

Posts

2,501

Originally Posted by rlipscombe

PRDH - that's seriously unlucky...brettney1980 - congrats making the group stages though that's a tough group. good luck.

Thanks, and i may just make it out of the group ... 1 game to go and a win over AZ gaurentees we're through .. Depending on the Chelsea vs Lyon game we could even win the group .. A draw there and a draw vs AZ could see us through ... Playing now.

EDIT: 4-0 See's us through but Chelsea score in the 89' minute to see them top the group.

Just beaten league leaders Bayern Munich to draw level on points, and we've gone top of the table on GD. 2 (winnable) games left for both teams, so its basically who scores the most goals in the next 2 games.

The Elgin City board are a bunch of chancers, we sold over 1000 season tickets, but the ground were sharing only has 500 seats, so that means the board took the money form the fans but will only allow half of the season ticket holders into home games, and the undersoil heating isn't due to finish til the end of February

I had a hard drive crash on Monday and lost all my saves I've not got the heart to do all that again so looking for a different country, not sure whether it'll be here or one of the other challenges yet so I need someone to tempt me

The Elgin City board are a bunch of chancers, we sold over 1000 season tickets, but the ground were sharing only has 500 seats, so that means the board took the money form the fans but will only allow half of the season ticket holders into home games, and the undersoil heating isn't due to finish til the end of February

This summer (and January too) saw a number of great Lusitânia Açores careers come to an end. Dias left on a free after refusing to sign a new contract, and in pre-emptive moves Henrique and EduardBorodin were both sold to avoid the same happening at the end of this season. Jorge Rodriguez, the much-vaunted midfielder who never quite played as well as he ought, started to kick up a fuss about leaving and was promptly sold. It was therefore with a significant sense of foreboding that I embarked on the new season without so many established figures in the club. Especially as it meant both captain and vice captain were leaving the club. Then came January and again tough decisions had to be made. Leandrinho's contract was running down, he was sold for a knock-down price, and Felix Krause (the man appointed captain at the start of the season) started making noises about leaving. He too was sold. The replacements will be mentioned below.

After the pre-season's upheaval I was hoping to maintain my position in the Europa League places to guarantee the income I rely on for another season. A great start to the season, including a 5-0 victory over holders Benfica, left me with hope at least that would happen. We won our first 5 games leaving us sitting at the top of the league. It was, probably, misleading though. Our next two games took us to Porto and Sporting, games we lost sending us back to our more accustomed position.

Patchy form followed, good results followed, with neither rhyme nor reason, by bad. But we were holding our ground as best of the rest. Even starting to push Sporting out of the picture for third. This I thought would be a good result given the departures. As we settled into third it became clear we were keeping pace with the top two, Porto and Benfica. I started getting greedy and eyeing the Champions League and the accompanying riches.

As we entered the final quarter of the season we faced a pivotal moment. We once again faced Porto and Sporting in consecutive games. This time at home. This time we snaffled two wins - 2-1 and 3-2 respectively. This left us right in contention, not only for the Champions League spot, but also, shockingly for the title itself. It was unbearably close. With a slightly better H2H record against Benfica and a dead heat one with Porto but a goal difference a couple worse, we needed to get more points or goals than Porto and level points as Benfica.

Entering the last day of the season it was in the balance but ours to lose. We were ahead of Porto and level on points, ahead of Benfica in the standings. We welcomed Beira Mar to the Azores while Benfica faced the already relegated Nacional de Madeira. Unsurprisingly Benfica won their game, but we, thanks to two goals from Ivan Poljak completed our side of the deal too. We were Champions! And with an average squad age of just 21, we won it with kids...

I feel somewhat robbed here. We dominated Stuttgart in the second leg after taking a couple of away goals home from Germany. Despite our domination we lost though. Still, first time out of the group was nice.

Tobias Grote - Out if his depth unfortunately, especially with the new challenges ahead. One to move on.

Fabio Raimondi - Likewise. He did at least perform well enough when needed, but he's not cut out for the step up.

Ignacio Exteberria - January addition. Performed most as a back up left back, did a decent job in our run in.

Meranah Descazals - The man who replaced Krause. An excellent piece of business. Krause left for £4m+ and he arrived from Clairefontaine for nothing. Performed very well. Especially for a youngster.

Mathieu Favreau - He's been around the club for a while waiting for a chance. Leandrinho's exit finally gave him that and he grabbed it with both hands as he made the position his own.

Christian Osses - Never had much competition when fit. He's got a lovely left foot and whips great balls into the box.

Midfielders

André Paiva - Brought in to add a touch of Portugal to an otherwise entirely foreign squad. He is handy for games/registrations which require home-trained players. That's about it.

Philippe Derrien - Spent last season as back up to Borodin. With his departure I decided to entrust him with the first-team birth and he performed very well. Popped up with some very handy goals too. Made the departure of Borodin a total non-issue.

Kristian Bidstrup - Decent youngster. Played a bit at the start of the season but faded. He's still got an interesting future.

Thiago - One of the team's creative forces. Turning into a very good left winger. Definitely one to keep hold of while I can.

Paul Peters - Snapped up on the cheap from Nigeria, I see a big future for this midfielder.

Dirk Hentschel - Gave a first choice tag to both my right wingers as they got injured in relays. Hentschel played the first half of the season, Yurkin the second. Both performed well. When both are fit I don't know who I'll play.

Ivan Poljak - Henrique was the player I was most worried about replacing. He was the playmaking forward. Poljak had been around the squad a while without really making it. But out of necessity he was thrown in this year and never looked back. Not always prolific but scored important goals. His brace in the League Cup final one us that game, and he scored two in the final league game to win the title too.

Venizelos Chrysanthou - He had a great time this season as his 47 goals in all competitions display. He was the top scorer and assister in the Portuguese Premier League and broke the record for most goals in a Europa League campaign helped in part by his bullying of the minnows in the early qualifying rounds.

Giuseppe Gambino - An interesting player. Brought in, along with Badji, to replace Henrique. Didn't get as much game time as I was expecting. He is a decent player though. We'll see what happens.

Mamadou Badji - Big, strong, quick, decent finisher this guy has it all, expect he does sometimes lose his head. An impact sub more than anything as Chrysanthou kept him out of the first team.

Jan Kessler - Stalled a bit this season, wants out. Not keen to see him leave but may have to let him go somewhere.

Aims for this season were...

1/ Push up again. I don't want to continue slowly slipping down the table. I'm looking at 3rd or 4th. Yes, definitely yes...2/ Get out of the European Group Stages. Yes

Aims for next season are...

1/ Not to be humiliated in the Champions League2/ Stay in Portugal's top two and make the Champions League again.

Story So Far...

Code:

Season League Position Achievements
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2012/13 Second Division - South 12th Avoided Relegation (just)
2013/14 Second Division - South 1st Promoted!
2014/15 Second League 14th Avoided Relegation
2015/16 Second League 2nd Promoted!
2016/17 Premier League 13th Avoided Relegation
2017/18 Premier League 3rd Qualified for Europa League
2018/19 Premier League 4th Europa League again
2019/20 Premier League 5th Europa League again/League Cup win
2020/21 Premier League 1st Champions!

dexter Is there any way you can try and get your save back? Try and recover it from your HD?

I'd not have a clue tbh FM is the only thing I don't have backed up on my external hard drive. I'm even more gutted about it because i've not been able to get in to another game since and I had even got out of my Europa group with a game against Fenerbache in the knockout to come. Was 4th in the league too

Defending German Cup winners Wilhelmshaven did not manage to capitalize on their success and produced a season that met expectations but never exceeded them

League|Graph: Once again the theme of the year was a lack of goals, although we managed to right that somewhat at the end of the season, we were basically toothless in front of goal. A frankly pathetic start to the season meant that we settled for 8th, no European football in Wilhelmshaven for the first time in 2 years.
Worriyingly, our average attendance remains poor, even though we are now Bundesliga mainstays. I know Wilhelmshaven isn't a big town...but some fans...please?

Super Cup: We drew Bayern through 90 competitive minutes before absolutely losing our composure from the penalty spot, however having Manuel Neurer in net will do that to some people

Europe: Passed into the group stage with ease and was placed into a group of death that included Blackburn, Benfica, and Monaco. We didn't have enough to get out of the group.

German Cup: Went out in the 2nd round to Dortmund. Pretty ugly defence of our crown, but Dortmund is a strong team

Squad
Keepers:Farkas- The Slovak number one was great again...until he started randomly dropping shots and crosses at random. Is a brilliant shot-stopper but giving up easy goals is not a good trait to haveLindstrom- More solid than Farkas but without his shot stopping ability. Might sell him as his contract is running out and get a cheap young replacement, but I'm undecided.

Defenders:Perrone- The best overall player at the club, potential future captain. He's great at right back.Martinovic- Now German international Martinovic as somehow he can't break the Serbian squad but the German squad is no problem? He's decent enough but Perrone is the first choice.Musil- Solid and consistent as ever Musil plays left back well.Andersen- Danish left back performs when called uponIvanildo- Club captain and legend even though he is only 27. 146 league appearances and 11 league goals, will be totals that will be built upon.Balan- Good season from the Romanian, though yet to really show the massive potential my assistant sees in him.Dembele- Competes with Balan for the other spot in defence alongside Ivanildo. Provides a little more culture and speed.Bell- Falling out of most other competitions quickly meant little rotation at the back, so Bell didn't play ofter. Will probably be off in the summer as I'm bringing a promising youngster into an already stout defence.

Midfielders:Falah- Played a LOT after Vieira broke his leg early in the season. Kept the season together for us, has been rewarded with a call up to the Sweden squad for the Euro Championships.Fofana- After a disapointing season Fofana produced a very good season, and was relied upon after Urbaniak broke his leg. 5 goals on a team that struggled to score shows his importance.Huertas- Was starting to be an anonymous season from last seasons German Cup hero Heurtas, until he hit a patch of goal scoring form that saw him piledrive in 4 goals in 3 games. Would love to see more of that form.Jansen- Forgetable season, though didn't see as much playing time. Included in the Norway squad for the Euro Championships.Jurco- As much as I like the Slovak, he's not going to help me win the title and with no Europe there might not be too many appearances coming for him, thus I might look to sell him on and let some younger players such as Jansen play moreSchussler- Loaned him from Arsenal when Vieira got hurt, proved his worth and at 1.9 million he might prove to be a bargain. It's also nice to have SOME Germans in a very international squad.Urbanek- The Czech right winger is a great player for us, but broke his leg midway through the season. On his returned, he repaid the faith that his manager had in him by scoring a hattrick to sink Frankfurt.Uzun- Keeps rolling along as a backup, now on the clubs favoured personnelVieira- A broken leg derailed his season and was not quite up to his usual standard. Really hoping he gets back to his best. Has taken German citizenship and is going to be eligible to play for Germany after the Euro Championships are done.Wagner- The homegrown Wagner played well when called upon, but he's a squad player onlyWorn- Somewhat disapointing season from Worn considering his high standards, but still a great talent.

Forwards:Zoidze- Appears to be the only striker on the books that can acutally score. 9 equals his best league total. Hardly prolific.Kyung-Ho- Flashes of brilliance from the Korean. Tore his calf in the last game of the season, but shouldn't miss too much time.Ferry- Produced an outstanding 0 goals! Almost 1000 minutes of no goals means I'm absolutely sick of him already. He's going to be off in the summer. Possibly my worst ever FM signing.Keles- Has a chance to be worse than Ferry. Has already been on leave to Turkey twice and produced no goals. He's got time to turn it around, but seriously, can't I sign a striker that can put the ball in the net for once?

The Departed:Bogovic- Sold to Racing for 3 million, just wasn't good enough anymore though I wonder how the broken leg affected him. 86 league appearances, 3 goals for Die SchlicktownerEnglezou- Why anyone was interested in a striker from Wilhelmshaven is beyond me. Why Fulham would part with 6.75 million for a striker that barely scores is a mystery. 73 league appearances, 14 goals.

Finances: Despite no attendance or progress in Europe Finances are strong...if only the board would let me spend some....Facilities: A good standard. Would ask for them to be upgraded further but I need to keep that money to strengthen the squadTransfers: Made a good profit. Still really lack for a top flight striker but will be waiting a while more.

The transfer budget set by the board is only 6 million with hardly an increase in the wage budget despite there being plenty in the bank . Going to be doing some wheeling and dealing to improve the squad I think.

Bayern Munich started off with a bang, and were 7 points ahead at the half way stage of the season. We picked up form in the latter half of the season, and Bayern couldn't keep theirs up. With 3 games left, we faced Bayern, 3 points behind. And beat them. Level on points now with 2 games left, I thought the league title might be settled by GD. We won both of our games 6-0, beating Augsburg and Hannover, whilst Bayern lost at HSV in the last game of the season, meaning TuS Koblenz were Bundesliga champions for the first time in their history :*)

Champions LeagueWe were drawn into Group D along with Lyon, Rangers and Valencia. Results in the group were strangely symmetrical. 2 losses, followed by 2 wins and then 2 draws The last match was against Lyon, who I needed to beat to qualify for the round of 16. This happened. Massively unlucky, and we had to contend with Europa League for this season.

Dexter - absolutely gutting news!! was really enjoying your game. hope you can find some way of getting it back?PRDH - well done mate - champions of Portugal! good luck in the CL next year and keeping hold of your titleAmethyst21 - unlucky mate - sounds like a frustrating season. those runs where you just can't score are so frustrating...el sid - \o/ well done mate. dramatic final day - i bet you couldn't believe it when you were crowned champions... good luck next season.

Transfers
Signed 8 players over the course of the season, but all on free transfers due to club taking out a loan to upgrade stadium, they left me with next to no transfer kitty, sold Kimbembe as his wages were a tad too high and the transfer money is more important than a goalscorer who can be replaced

League
The board wanted me to avoid relegation and this looked more than achievable as we started the season scoring for fun and were looking in a good position to be in the top 6 come the split, however we really started to struggle several games should've been wins for us as we dominated and the clear cut chances were high but the players seemed to be impotent in front of goal, picking up the occasional win here and there. We never looked in danger of relegation as both Motherwell and Inverness seemed to both be very poor. A 3-2 win against Rangers in the last game before the split seemed to give the team the confidence boost they needed and we went on to win the remaing games of the season and finsh the league in a respectable positionFixtures 1Fixtures 2Fixtures 3

I felt that we could get a decent run in this competition, and earn some decent prize money to help clear some of the debt, the 4th round drew us against Nairn County, a team we beat a few seasons back so an easy win expected and an easy win it was 5-0, the 5th round gave us Forfar and we won easily again 3-0. Onto the quarter-final and we were drawn against First Div Dunfermline, who were leading 1-0 at half-time but the team soon bucked up their ideas and scored 3 times in the second half 3-1. The semi-final drew us against Hearts and I knew this would be a tough game, but what a game it was, Hearts led 2-0 at half-time but I clawed it back to 2-2 but 5 mins later they were 4-2 up and with 15 mins remaining it looked like we were out, but 2 goals in the last 7 mins sent the game into extra-time. Hearts scored and were dominating so the dream was over, until Burrows popped up with the equaliser to force penalties, Hearts lost all their confidence from 12 yards as I scored the 3, they missed their first 3 and put us through to the final 5-5(3-0 on pens). We had drawn Rangers in the final and with us beating them only weeks before I knew we had a good chance of an upset, unfortunately due to injuries and suspensions I had to play my MC Pavlicic as a second striker, a gamble which payed off for us as he scored 2 goals to give Elgin their biggest win in their entire history 3-1 victory and the Scottish Cup title, which also includes entry into the Euro Cup next season.

We drew Sranraer in the 1st round and despatched of them comfortably 5-0, next up was Raith Rovers and another comfortable victory 3-1 this time. The 3rd round drew us against Hamilton who had just put four past us a couple weeks back in the league, this time they scored 3 but our strikers had their minds firmly on the job and scored 6, through to the quarters 6-3, First Div Partick Thistle were the next opponents and they really gave us a game taking it to extra-time but we were able to score and set up a semi-final tie against eventual league winners, Dundee United. Rode my luck in the semi-final but the shot shy United strikers never punished my defencive errors and a breakaway goal put us in the final. Hearts were the opponents in the Final and it would be a close game but we were confident of winning, 2-0 up after 30 minutes and cruising until Bonneau was sent off resulting in Hearts pulling a goal back before half-time, the second half started and we had soon restored our 2 goal lead, but the extra man gave Hearts the advantage and before I knew it the game was level, with Extra-time looming the Jambo's scored to winner in injury time, so close yet so far away, slowly getting a reputation as a cup team.

Squad
The squad is starting to look like the United Nations now with only 2 Scots in the senior squad, 1 of which is a talented looking academy player, losing 2 important players Hamann and Bonneau, as they wouldn't sign new contracts and a going to their respective homelands to bigger and better clubs, will hopefully be given a better wage budget to find their replacements

The undersoil heating was completed in February so went from a 500 strong home attendance to selling out our 3927 all seaster stadium every week, prompting the board to expand seating meaning for the 1st few months were going to only have 500 fans at home again, I will be attempting to reach the groups of the Euro cup as this will give me a lot of money and the board may upgrade training facilities.

Turned down job offers from Motherwell, Aberdeen, fierce rivals Inverness and the Nigerian national job

A shame you lost a few players. Hopefully, an improved rep and more prize money from Europe next year will help you get replacements

Cheers DodgeeD, hopefully i can have a good european season, I've just signed James Mcfadden as a coach he's got 20 for attacking and 16 for motivating all for £425 a week so think I got me a good bargain for backroom staff there

I've just had my Champions League group drawn. I don't hold up much hope. I'm in the same group as Barcelona, Man City and CSKA Moscow. Potentially could get something against CSKA, but Barcelona and City? I don't give myself a hope in hell's chance!

jimbowmanuk -congrats on the Scottish Cup win and euro qualification. That will put you straight into the fourth qualifying round, so you'll just have to get past one team for the group stages. Good luck on the draw (you might need it).

I also was offered the Nigerian national job. They said they were impressed by my track record of corruption, bungs and nepotism. When I mentioned my team's record on the pitch they admitted they didn't actually have any knowledge of that, but did ask if they thought I could transfer the funds of a recently deceased government minister through the East Stirlingshire books. So, even though I had to decline the job because of challenge rules, hopefully I'll make a nice little bundle through the money laundering.

Bad luck on the League Cup defeat. I've just had my third league Cup final in 4 years, and this time we managed to win, which is good because now, having won the bad boy, I can use the competition to give match practice to my back up players.

El Sid - congrats on your title and Cup. Looks like you may be ready to make a stab at the whole banana soon.

Amethyst21 - Hope your year of famine is followed by a bountiful harvest this season.

Last match before the Premier League splits in two for the last 5 games of the season, and we had to win our match which would see us safely into the top half, (where we'd been nearly all season) with a good chance of Europe;

unless Rangers won away from home and ​Hearts and Hibs (2 points ahead but with better goal difference) drew their Edinburgh derby, in which case we'd have to win by 7 goals.

You can guess what happened. We only won 3-0, and all the other results went against us. We're in 7th place. In fact we'll finish in 7th place given that we're 22 points ahead of the team in 8th, but there will be no Europe next season. An absolute disaster.

Premier Division
After finishing second in the regular season last time out, I was hoping for a return to the end of season Championship Group and that’s what we ended up doing. Our defence was improved again but we were still lethal going forward as Ankaragücü and Beşiktaş discovered to their cost. From January onwards, it was clear that it would be a battle between us, Fenerbahçe and Galatasaray for top spot. We led most of the way but the other teams always had games in hand on us and the proved crucial in the final outcome. We actually won 16 of our last 17 games but, unfortunately for us, so did Fenerbahçe, passing us near the end of the season when they finally played that game in hand and pipping us to top spot once again.Final Table

Championship Group
I was hoping for a second place finish and a spot in next season’s Champions League qualifiers and that’s exactly what we got. However, we couldn’t help but wonder what might have been as a pair of defeats to Trabzon cost us dearly. Had we won either game (especially the one at home when Trabzon played 88 minutes with ten men!), we would have taken the title. We also acted as our own worst enemies in the penultimate game against Fenerbahçe as two own goals allowed them to grab a 3-3 draw… Still, we were impressive in two wins over Galatasaray and also performed an amazing turnaround to come back from 3-0 down to beat Fenerbahçe 4-3 in the second match. A bit more consistency next season and the title could be ours…Final standings

Turkish Cup
After 3 seasons of going out in the 4th round, we finally got a cup run together. Granted, we beat three teams from the bottom half of the first division on the way to the semis but we were still happy to final progress. That set up an epic semi-final clash with Beşiktaş. 1-1 after normal time, we soon found ourselves 3-1 down but fought back to tie the match 3-3 and take it to penalties. Alas, we were out of luck there as we lost the shoot-out 5-4 but we were happy just to put a decent run together and rpove we are not bottlers when it comes to cup games.

Europa League
We entered in the 3rd Qualifying Round again and easily dispatched Icelandic side FH 7-1 on aggregate. We were unseeded for the 4th qualifying round and when we drew Fiorentina, I thought that was that. However, we turned in one of our performances of the season to win 4-1 in Italy and send shockwaves around Europe. We were perhaps a bit cocky for the return leg as we went 3-0 down before eventually losing 4-2 on the night. Still, a 6-5 aggregate score was enough to see us through.

In the group stage, we drew another Italian side in the shape of Roma as well as FC Twente and Standard Liege. We faced Roma at home first as were 1-0 up with ten minutes to go but lost 2-1. We managed to beat Standard home and away but only got one point from the two games with FC Twente, which ended our hopes of progressing. A 4-2 loss in Rome rounded off our first group stage campaign in Europe. Hopefully, we‘ll come back stronger next year.Final Table

The Squad: Transfers
The usual crop of youngsters who handed made the grade and reserve players who were unnecessarily using up the wage budget left in the summer. The highest profile departure was Cuneyt Köz, a right back who had only been at the club one season. As I thought my youngsters in the same position were better and I liked Beşiktaş’s offer, he left too.

There were no major signings this season but I did add some depth to the squad with some Turkish players, most of whom came from Germany or Holland and have dual nationality.

The Squad: Key PlayersAli Kemal Şahin (GK) – This young keeper had been back-up for the last two seasons and not played much but over the summer, my coaches kept telling me he was showing ‘remarkable improvements’ in training so he got his chance and we never looked back. 13 clean sheets far exceeds anything his predecessor managed.Matan Mizrahi (DC) – The Israeli was our most consistent defender this season and won plenty of admirers. Those admirers include some big European teams but, so far, he is happy to stay.Sercan Nergiz (DL) – Came of age this year and made the left-back slot his own.Şahin Kaya (DM) – Now a key member of the team. Unfortunately, missed several games with injury but developed a lot during the season and is now being watched by the national side’s manager.Inout Maior (MC) – Another solid season in central midfield with plenty of support given to the attackers. I’ve started getting bids from clubs in Germany and France so I hope I can hold on to him.Hakan Konak (AMR/C) – Struggled with injury a little but was very effective when fit. He also became the first player from my side to be capped by the Turkish national team.Barış Tan (AMLC) – One of those players that the coaches don’t rate very highly (3*) but who consistently turns in match-winning performances. 21 goals from the wing!Jens Mayer (AMR/ST) – Competition for places was tougher this season so he was in and out of the side early in the season but finished in great form and scored some key goals in the Championship Group.Nicky Woodford (ST) – Played 54 games in all competitions with a return of 41 goals. He also led the league in number of assists. Wonderful player.

The Squad: Ones to WatchMatthew Blake performed well in midfield when given a chance and will be our back-up should Maior leave. Following on from the successful integration of Şahin Kaya into the first team, we have another promising youngster coming through the ranks. Erman Ergin scored a fantastic 16 goals and at one point was keeping Jens Mayer out of the side. Expect to see more from him over the next few seasons!

The Season Ahead…
Europe will be tough this year as we will go into the runners-up qualifying pool with strong sides from England, Spain, Italy, Germany etc likely to be seeded. We may well drop down to the Europa League but I wouldn’t be too disappointed with that.

Domestically, I am aiming for silverware now. I told the board I can mount a title challenge and I am confident we can do well in the cup too. The squad may need some revamping as Maior only has one year left on his contract and is playing hardball. Some other players with a year left on their deals may be moved on due to their ridiculously high wage demands (asking for an increase from 20k a week to 85k is a bit much in my opinion!)

I've been very quiet lately but fear not I am ploughing on with Novese. We were leading C1A at the winter break but a series of injuries and suspensions has put paid to our form. Worse still, Natale has put in a transfer request. It's basically go up and we might hold on to him, or stay in this division and we'll lose him for the min fee release clause. Either way it's not looking good

thought we had lost you iacovone!! if you don't go up you could always lock him in the changing room and hope everyone forgets about him until he realises the error of his ways and decides to stay.....

WOW, sooo much progress since I was last really here, I have just finished my fortnight of chaos that happens every year (Hopefully for the last time). So now I am relaxing at home for a bit, and getting my Pre & Mid Season update together, will post that and then have a look back over the couple of pages I am behind on and the rest.

Good to see that we still have an amazing core of people continuing on here though...

Well given that my club has just joined the league, and we are expected to fall out the bottom immediately I have been very pleased with the performance to this point. We have clearly surprised a few teams, we have also had some terrible losses. A few changes in January seem to have cemented our semi safety in the mid table battle, though the continuous postponement of games due to bad weather at the ground we are sharing does hurt a bit. We are averaging close to 5000 fans in every game, and as such making a profit, our bank balance has climbed by 1.5M this season putting us well into the black. I hope to continue either along where we are or move up the table during the remainder of the season, currently only Marin is set to leave at the end of the season, but given Lopez & Ozlu are starting this is not a concern. In the pre-season the paper was mentioning that teams needed to watch out for Kivanc Ozlu, they were right as he is clearly our best defender so far this season. In November we managed to dominate the Team of the week in what was a great outcome for AD Parla.

We did alright through the friendlies, was a good warm up for the season. And has built to a reasonably solid start.

The TransfersIn Brief
In: 10 Players (€500)
Out: 2 Players (€220k)
Loans: 5 Players (€8k)
Wages Total: €19,413 (p/w)
Wage Budget: €23,363 (p/w)
Remaining Transfers: €168kNew Signings
First TeamAdrian Vidorreta (Free) - He is a very strong future AM, looking to use him as such.Matias Lopez (Free) - The Uruguayan Striker, has actually dropped out due to the 2 Non-EU limit.Riccardo Martinelli (Free) - He is my solid back-up, he played well early on.Talha Kilavuz (Free) - A good future defender will spend the season on loan.Martin Lopez (Free) - The young defender stepped straight in knocking Marin out.Pablo Sanchez Varela (Free) - A very solid right side player Defense and Winger.Pedro Rebocho (Free) - The Left back is young and will be the future.Andre Perego (Free) - Has Liga BBVA potential, likely to step in behind Lopez & Ozlu.Paulinho (Free) - My new Superstar striker has huge potential and will support Herlein upfront.Miguel Lopez (€500) - I needed something better on the right wing and this was the one, the third M.Lopez looks very good.Youth

Other News
The team has been playing infront of about 5000 supporters every week so far this season at the regularly waterlogged El Soto Municpal, but when we return to our own ground there is only 4000 seats, the money that we have made profit this season is going to need to be desperately spent on a stadium upgrade as we are going to sell out every game at the end of the season. Financially it is very, very solid for us. I think I have finally built a team in January that can move up the table instead of falling down. Juan Francisco Aranda managed to become the all time appearance leader for AD Parla, but then in January lost his position in the team to Varela, a terrible result for him, though he is now our most regular sub as he covers the whole right side of the park.

El Sid - Congrats on leading Koblenz to the top division, good luck from there. And making it 4th in the first season up is just brilliant. Go for the title next year? 2nd...so close, looks like Bayern is going to be tough to overcome in the league, but into the Champions League now. Woohooo! COngrats on the third Top level League title all on the same page.Amethyst - Excellent effort making it into the Euro Cup, even better to win it at your first attempt a trophy is always nice. Hard Luck in the follow-up season, 7th is still a good finish in the top league, but now you need to push forward a little bit. Ouch that was a bit of a disappointing season at the end there.G-Wiz - A Good Solid season with 10th in the Russian First Div. Congrats on Promotion, good luck as you step in to take on the big boys.Berty - An excellent first season in the Ligue 1, mid table is an amazing effort. Moving up to 5th in the second season makes it look very solid. Congrats on the 2nd place, League title next season?PRDH - Awesome progress with Lusitano Azores, hopefully you can get those boys into the Champs League. Well a slight slip once again to 5th, but you seem to be solidly at the top of the league. Congrats on the League Victory, halfway home, now the hard part of Portugal pushing on towards the Champions League can take a large number of seasons to get enough good players in and convincing them to stay.Almondo - 5th in the Liga BBVA is excellent, I hope you can push on from here and defeat the bigger teams. Even better that you won the Copa del Rey. Slowly moving forward with a 3rd in the next season, solid stuff. Woooohooo Congrats on the League Title, and halfway finished, excellent to see our first top level title. Good Luck in the Champions League.Jimbowman - Welcome aboard and good luck in Scotland. Excellent work in the first season, good luck in the 2nd Division. Congrats on the 2nd Div win, good luck as you push forward in the 1st Division. A great first season in the 1st Division, 4th is comendable, now to push on towards another promotion. Congrats on gaining that promotion, now good luck as you do your best in the Prem League. Well 8th is definitely a solid finish, crazy to see how few season tickets you have though...DodgeeD - Excellent work making it to Europe, though 6th qualifying is weird :P, Congrats on 2nd place & Then on the repeat, now to see what you can do in the Champions League this season.SiLKeape - WOW, 4th in the Serie A at first attempt is incredible.Ohanzee - Congrats on Promotion to Ligue 1, good luck in avoiding relegation during the new season.Toonbalmy - Nice and solid season in the Bundesliga there, may be a step backwards, but it looks like a building season which everyone needs. *Applause* Congrats on the cup victory and moving ahead of Bayern, good luck going for the title next year.Dexter - Welcome aboard, and an awesome effort ripping up with Barakaldo, hopefully my slow and steady progress will catch you eventually. Congrats on the 7th place in the Liga BBVA.Brettney1980 - Into the Champions League, Congratulations, now to push forward and take out the big teams, love the table with 14th and 10th both making the Europa League.Neushoorn - An excellent first season in the Bundesliga there, glad to see 10th for RB Leipzig.Vikeologist - Excellent work on the 5th in the Prem, hopefully you can challenge Rangers & Celtic soon.

Looking Towards CompletionWell now that we have teams making it towards completion I will keep a table tracking those closest.

Challenger

Club

League

Season

Stage of Completion

Almondo

Pena Sport

Liga BBVA

2020/21

League Title

PRDH

Lusitano Azores

Portuguese 1st Div

2020/21

League Title

el Sid

Koblenz

German 1st Div

2016/17

League Title

As for me well we are in Mid-Feb and pushing on to a solid Mid-Table finish in our first Liga Adelante season and putting in some good results against top teams, we just need some consistency now and it should be good.

Having played in Portugal, I can confirm that PRDH, it is a very large step up from the League in Portugal to the Champions League, it takes a lot of continual success and players deciding to come to the best team in Portugal. The new system of league reps being dynamic will surely help, but I still think it will be a long term aim as you have to lift the rep to get the top players in.

We won the League Cup, reached the last second knock out round in the Euro Cup and picked up a fair number of points in the league. The trouble was that 6 other teams did well in the league as well, and at the 33 game mark when the division splits into two we found ourselves in 7th, (behind both Hearts and Hibs on goal difference, and a point behind Rangers who had rescued their season by gaining 22 of a possible 24 points from their previous 8 games) and consigned to the relegation group and with no chance of European qualification.

Oh well. Maybe without 16 European ties to cope with we’ll challenge for a Champions League place this season. Unfortunately it looks as though Rangers (who capped their resurrection with the Scottish Cup) are back in business. Also, from now on I’ll use the League Cup to give some match practice to the reserves.

The team’s improving, but I’m still having a bit of a clear out. Ricardo Kishna (10 goals in 49 Premier league starts) is gone. (Whenever I tried to drop him, his replacement got injured). My other starting striker (who does score plenty of goals) picked up an injury at the end of the season, which allowed me to play the backups for the final 5 games and see who should be Kishna’s replacement. They weren’t bad, but then again they were playing the worst teams in the division. Unfortunately our strike force is the weak part of our squad, and this is where I’m focussing my transfer efforts.
One of my starting central defenders had a year left on his contract, and didn’t want to sign a new one, so I’ve cashed in on him. He wasn’t all that anyway.
It was a disappointing season, but with 68 points from 38 games, (again, albeit playing the dross at the end) I’m relatively optimistic that we can get back on track next year.
Squad
Table
Transfers

Hard luck Vikeologist, sounds like it was a bit harsh for you to end up in the bottom 6 after the split, but hopefully as you say cutting a few games from the schedule may end up helping the club in the end. Good Luck with the new season and Congrats on adding another trophy to your hoard. Looks like only the Premier League title to go and you will have a full set of Scottish Trophies.

There were tough decisions to make this summer as I again came up against key players reluctant to sign new deals. In the end, we let Inout Maior go to Feyenoord in a 7millionTL deal rather than lose him for nothing next year. The other key player to leave was José Carlos Ada. He has been a solid performer in defence over the last few years and was only a year away from acquiring Turkish nationality but his wage demands were ridiculous. He was on 29k a week (already too much as we was on the second highest salary but was only ranked as the third best defender at the club) but was now demanding 90k a week! We sold him for 500k to Dinamo Moscow.

That meant I was on the look out for new players in defence and up front and I also had the chance to bring in some new foreign signings for the first time in a while. In the end, a mix of young Turkish and English talent came in with the following likeşy to play some role in the first team squad:

Alexandre Tavares (ST) – released by Southampton last June but nevertheless included in England’s U20 World Cup winning squad, which is where my scouts spotted him. Not the best finisher but that pace and acceleration should cause some trouble for opposition defences.Craig Qualter (AMRC) – Another released player (Chelsea) spotted at the U20 World Cup. I needed cover in midfield and this guy, who can play central midfield, on the right wing or in an advanced attacking role, all as a ‘natural’ position, offers me just that.Ian Hill (MC) – Also fresh from the U20 World Cup and this time a reject of Man U’s youth system. He’s ‘the next Glenn Hoddle’ apparently – if they mean as a player, I’ll take that!Fikret Akbulut (DM/MC) – I’ve been tracking this guy for a while as we don’t have a natural DM as back up to Şahin Kaya. 2.1million TL enough to persuade first division Bucaspor to part with him.Harun İnan (MC/AMC) – Another player I had tried to sign before. He was playing at my feeder club Sariyer in the second division and was clearly their standout player. 1.6million TL gives us some extra options in midfield.Mustafa Mahir Altintas (DRL) – the other transfer saga of the summer was that left back Sercan Nergiz wanted to leave and demanded a transfer. In the end, no other clubs were interested but Nergiz’s unhappiness forced a move into the transfer market for this youngster who has the potential to be just as good. Also joins from a first division side Samsunspor, this time for 2.6million.

I hope the loss of Maior doesn't upset the balance of the team too much. With the board's expectations raised, we need to be moving forward rather than going through a season of transition.

Anyway, you know that thing where your carefully assembled team who have been perfectly competent, even quite good, before suddenly forget how to play football? Yeah? Well, that. To extremes. My team, the same team that one the title last year, led by the same player who scored more than 40 goals ast season can't get a win from anywhere and that striker has now gone more than 10 hours without a goal.

Granted we had a tough start to the season (Inter in the Champions League qualifiers and Fenerbahçe, Bursaspor, Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor in the first 5 games) and that affected morale but we have suddenly forgotten how to defend and Woodford (who scored over a 100 goals in just of 2 seasons at the club) is averaging about 6.40 a game and only has 4 goals in 12 so far....

I'm hoping for a turnaround soon as I promised the board a title challenge this season!

I just beat Galatasaray 4-0! A fantastic result in many ways as we now cut their lead at the top down to 3 points (with other results going our way too) and I believe it's the first time we've beaten them and kept a clean sheet in the process. To make it even better, misfiring Woodford refound his form and scored his 99th and 100th league goals for the club.

a season that I privately expected to struggle a little in turned out to be a great debut season in Bundesliga II. After struggling initially to find our feet we soon found form and found ourselves in the upper reaches of the table. After 15 games we hit third and we never moved from that position. Koln, led by Lukas Podolski, and Dusseldorf were far too strong for us and we cruised home in third, though it got a little hairy towards the end of the season.

Finishing third meant we had to go into the play-off against Kaiserslautern of the Bundesliga. Kaiserslautern are one of our fierce rivals and I didn’t feel like we had a chance. A dogged 0-0 draw at their place saw us return to the Carl-Benz Stadion with a good chance of a remarkable promotion. We battled away but couldn’t break them down before we were hit with the sucker punch of a 88th minute Kaiserslautern goal. We lost 1-0 and thus will spend another season in Bundesliga II.

German Cup

Funnily enough we also played Kaiserslautern at home in the 1st round of the German cup. Given the lack of a pre-season I decided to treat the game as a friendly and I played a number of trialists in order to evaluate them. We lost 2-0 and our cup run was over before it begun.

The Players

Here’s a look at the players who performed so admirably in Bundesliga II:

1. Tales - our Brazilian keeper had to make do as understudy to Heimann and is growing unhappy at a lack of first team football.
30. Niclas Heimann - Niclas took to the new league like a duck to water. He is an integral part of our team.

Full Backs

22. Andreas Schroder - the young Austrian Rb did ok when called upon in his first season though he is very young. Hopefully a second season will be better for him.
50. Celestin M’Pondo - Celestin was solid if unspectacular in his first season. Offered a threat going forward, he was a little dodgy at times in defence. Still young though.
27. Mattia Desole - Mattia came back in to the starting lineup and did ok. Taken the decision to let him go in the summer as I think I can get better…
14. Hrvoje Cale - Hrvoje joined in January on a contract to the end of the season as I was a little weak at LB. did ok when he played, he will leave in the summer.

Centre Backs

6. Osmar - Osmar had a good first season and contributed to our tight defence. Still developing too as a player, I am quite excited by his potential.
44. Kostas Bantounas - Kostas was the rock at the centre of our defence. Performed well for one so young and weighed in with some goals as well. Could well be part of the long-term future of this club.
49. Ricardo Tavares - Ricardo was the third of the trio of new centre backs and did well in rotation with Osmar. Another player with great ability and potential.
63. Yilmaz Ercan - Yilmaz found himself on the fringes this season following the new arrivals. He still has a future at the club.

Midfielders

4. Matthew Perrett - the Welsh U21 captain was mainly an understudy but did a decent job when called upon. I believe he’ll be better next season.
7. Nicolas Ruiz - Nicolas joined in the Spring and did a solid job. Another who I think will kick on next season.
10. Oliver Norwood - Oliver had another season in and out of the team. Did well when called upon but I have decided to let him go in the summer.
16. Ozgur Olgun - Ozgur had a solid first season but he is young and still developing. A potential future star.
20. Sven Mende - Sven had been at the club for a couple of seasons but had been on the sidelines. Got a run early in the season and he never looked back, becoming a mainstay in the midfield. Top assist maker with 10 goals, his abilities are greater than his stats suggest.
23. Mark Mainwaring - Mark was mainly a sub but is another developing with a great future potentially.
24. Bjorn Schneider - Bjorn started the season on the transfer list but did ok when called upon. Still leaving in the summer on a free transfer though as I explore better options on the right wing.
43. Mert Acikgoz - Mert came in and became 1st choice RM. Did a solid job and weighed in with a couple of goals. Another of our young Turks with a bright future.
72. Jaud Nkusu Landu - Jaud joined after being released by Man United and did a good job in his debut season. Plenty of developing for him still to be done as well.

Strikers

12. Nicolao Dumitru - Nicolao made the step up in level and weighed in with 12 league goals. Had a few dry spells but he is improving all of the time.
25. Yassine Hamdaoui - Yassine settled in more this season and weighed in with 10 goals during the season. I have 3 good young strikers at the club.
99. Gurami Enukidze - Gurami was top scorer for the club this season and weighed in with 17 league goals. Plays great as a target man, he continues to improve.
37. Ciaran Bradley - I feel it is time to introduce my homegrown striker Ciaran Bradley. He finally made it into the first team squad and made a couple of appearances at the back end of the season. Ciaran has 4.5* potential and I am extremely excited with his potential. i am going to include him more next season.

Finances

Thanks to prize money totalling just over £5 million, we are now nicely in the black. We have been strengthened greatly and all being well we will never end up in the red again…

The Future

Well how can we top this season? By going and getting promoted I guess!! In all seriousness I gave myself a three year plan to get into the Bundesliga. If we make it next season then brilliant but I have two years to do it. Looking at the teams coming down the strength of Koln and Dusseldorf isn’t there so maybe that will give us a chance. Time will tell.

I got to the Qtr Final but got knocked out by Bayer Leverkusen but it was blessing in disguise because if i stayed in i think my team would of suffered with fitness

WOHOOOOOO!!!!!! After Beating Barcelona our next game was a against porto who i managed to get past them and the final was against lyon i had some great news Hugo Lloris picked up an injury so he was out of that game and the World Cup

Transfers
Only signed 2 players all season as I was quite happy with the progress of the squad, ST Santiago proved to be an amazing addition to the strikeforce teaming up with Guinchard proved to be the best partnership in the league, Sold Pavlicic for £500k as we needed the money, and he didn't want to be at theclub any more. Kunt proved to live up to his name by refusing to sign a new contract and left at the end of the season even though he had not signed for another club.

League
The board wanted me to avoid relegation and this was albut guaranteed about a third of the way through the season as my free scoring team were flying high towards the top, 5 teams were all still in the hunt for the title going into the final 3 games, and surprisingly none of them were Celtic or Rangers, who both had nightmare seasons including neither of them qualifying for Europe next season. A loss to Hibs in the second last game meant we couldn't catch Aberdeen as they were 4 points ahead, but in the last game we needed to win and hope that Hibs didn't to grab 2nd place. We strolled to a 7-2 victory while Hibs were held 0-0 by the Celtic, the only point the Bhoys got in the last 5 games. So we have qualified for the Champions Cup so hopefully we can reach the group stage as the prize money will pay for improvements to facilities.Fixtures 1Fixtures 2Fixtures 3

Euro Cup
The board wanted us to learn from the experience of playing in the tournament, and we were taught a lesson of how not to close out a game. Drawn against Russian Side Rubin Kazan in the final qualifying round before the groups. A trip to Russia for the 1st leg and although they dominated the match we were able to score what I thought would be vital away goals, losing 4-3. The Home leg had me believing that a single goal win would take us through but Rubin scored after 4 minutes and we looked to be going out, until the team kicked into gear scoring 4 times before the break. So leading the tie 7-5 with 45 minutes to go I was already planning what to do with extra money when the team fell apart and conceded 3 goals in 11 minutes and put us out 8-7 on aggregate.Leg 1Leg 2

We were drawn against Hearts in the 4th round in our attempt to defend the title, and after struggling in the match we forced a replay with 10 minutes to go, so off to Tynecastle a few days later and Hearts showed us why they were up challenging for the title by racing to a 3-0 lead at half-time, despite getting a goal back it proved little more than consolation

We were drawn against league rivals St Mirren in the 3rd round and it was a routine victory with all players doing their job, eventual league winners Aberdeen were our opponents in the quarter-final and it was a very tight game but with Aberdeen being reduced to 10 men it gave us the upperhand to sneak a winner. First division new boys Brechin, who had done some giant killing, were standing between us and the final. They weren't standing too long as we steamrollered them 4-0 to set up a final with Dundee. Hoping to win it this time we started brightly getting an early lead, but Dundee found an equaliser to force Extra-time, both teams found themselves going down to 10 men but my squads fitness proved to be the edge we needed scoring a winner with 2 minutes of E/T left and giving us another Cup for the trophy cabinet.

Squad
I'm happy with the balance of the squad now but may go searching for an extra DC and MC to help with the depth of the squad if I want to attempt a season in Europe

We now have a 6000 seater stadium which is selling out almost every month, so if the board can't expand any further I could see a new stadium being planned in the next couple of years

jimbowmanuk - well done to you as well. GL in the Champions League. I see you've still got Burrows and Kolseth hanging around. In my save Burrows is playing in the Scottish Juniors West Superleague Premier Division. You're making me feel as though I ruined his career! Clearly you've got a thriving silk purse industry, and a lot of sows with profound hearing difficulties.

jimbowmanuk - well done to you as well. GL in the Champions League. I see you've still got Burrows and Kolseth hanging around. In my save Burrows is playing in the Scottish Juniors West Superleague Premier Division. You're making me feel as though I ruined his career! Clearly you've got a thriving silk purse industry, and a lot of sows with profound hearing difficulties.

Cheers I signed another good striker and a couple of central mids, drew 2-2 with Arsenal and beat twente 2-1, also the old firm are really struggling after 8 games Celtic have 8 points and Rangers have 6 points. I hammered Celtic 8-0 too

Burrows and Kolseth are just back-up players now, they rarely get games but they will come in handy for resting important players for the european matches

My board are infuriating! I am performing under fairly strict budgetary constraints (admittedly enforced by me) and am determined to only buy if I can sell for now. I've got us into the Champions League, and so should have a chunk of money arriving at the end of the season. I've built up a balance of £14m, a very nice buffer.

Yet, despite this, I still have to fight tooth and nail for any small increase in the standard of training facilities, youth recruitment, junior coaching - anything! I really hope I can get rid of my chairman at some point. Get someone in with a it more ambition.

Having initially expected a pretty rough ride, i was pleasantly surprised by the clubs form in the Premier Division, proving fairly competitive for the most part. However, we were on the receiving end of a few spankings from some of the bigger clubs, but that was to be expected. Some good runs saw us finish in 8th, a very decent first season in the top flight.

The team also surprised me in the Russian Cup, managing to get all the way to the final, where we pulled off a bit of an upset, beating Kuban 3-1 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in normal time!! So as a result, the club will make its first foray into European football, having qualified for the Euro Cup next season. Scary stuff

Constantin Miselaricu - surprisingly ended the season as my top scorer, finishing with 16 goals. my tactics all of a sudden made him a real danger from set pieces!

Georgy Burnash - first choice partner for Miselaricu in CB position, less of an impact but solid enough

Antonio - young Brazilian FB who looks like one for the future, thrown in at the deep end this season, but hopefully can kick on now

Guy Lombard - free signing, instant first choice at RB, hopefully he and Antonio can really establish themselves as quality FBs over the next year or two

MID

Alexandr Zotov - my other first choice DM, did nothing but tackle apart from his one goal, improving well

Ales Slezak - another player who i feel has a bright future at the club, looked impressive when used

Amir Kashiev - a first choice DM, he ended the season with 3 goals and 15 assists, great season

Momar Bangoura - DM cover, solid when used, may see more action next year depending how the transfer market goes

Anton Lunin - one who found himself playing a fair bit, but didnt do much with it. more of a squad player now that the team is making a bit of money, may end up on the way out

Giorgi Lomsadze - youngster got a bit of game time and continues to improve. at 16 he has huge potential

Andrey Pazin - 4 goals and 9 assists, not bad but i need at least one new winger for next season

ATT

Alin Rosu - played more on LW than up front, continues to improve, 5 goals and 10 assists

Dzambolat Khastsaev - didnt feature a lot, but was the star of our Russian Cup run, his 3 goals helping us to the final

Maxim Votinov - brought in to cover the loss of Sarasek, Kuzma and Boichuk, pretty ineffective though

Levan Gvelesiani - the big man was chosen to step up after Saraseks exit, and he did a pretty good job, taking to his lone frontman role well, and finishing with 14 goals. Acceptable, but i feel he can do even better